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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22469584">Only Tragedy Allows The Release</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gillianaunofficial/pseuds/gillianaunofficial'>gillianaunofficial</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sex Education (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 09:15:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,081</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22469584</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gillianaunofficial/pseuds/gillianaunofficial</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: can you do something where jean tells maureen that she’s pregnant and doesn’t know what to do and maureen is like super in love with jean and they kiss</p><p>I’m honestly not too happy with this one but I thought I’d post it anyway.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jean Milburn/Maureen Groff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Only Tragedy Allows The Release</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Maureen had been washing the dishes when her phone had begun to vibrate. She’d removed her yellow rubber gloves, leaving them on the draining board and looked at her phone. Jean Milburn’s name glowed on the screen. A sudden wave of excitement washed over her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maureen…” Jean said, through a small sob, the sound crackling on the speaker. “I didn’t know who else to call.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jean, are you alright?” Maureen asks, furrowing her eyebrows, a hand fiddling with the pearls on her necklace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you come over? I’d rather talk about it in person.” Maureen felt strange hearing Jean in so much distress she agrees and drains the sink, worrying about her friend. She hoped Jean was okay, she didn’t think she could bear to see her upset.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jean answered the door still teary eyed, her face flushed from crying. Maureen’s heart clenched at the sight of the woman normally so happy and smiling seeming so distraught. Jean led her into the house, her hands shaking as she began to make Maureen a cup of tea. Maureen stood beside her and flinched as Jean’s teaspoon clattered to the floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll do it, it’s okay.” She said, placing a hand on Jean’s shaking one. Jean smiled gratefully, her face pale and let her finish making the tea. They sat down in the living room, Jean trying not to start to cry again, one hand splayed across her chest, over her heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened?” Maureen asked, breaking the almost silence. Jean looked up, it was as though she were in a trance and hadn’t fully registered the other person there. Suddenly she felt guilty, this was her stupidity to deal with and nobody else’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked you to come over, it’s fine really.” Jean said, licking her lips, a tear slid down her face and she caught the salt water by the tip of her tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jean, I can tell you’re not okay.” Maureen said, placing a hand on Jean’s thigh, her heartbeat fluttered at the contact she had instigated. What the feeling was she wasn’t quite sure. Jean looked at Maureen’s hand on her leg and sighed. She found herself yearning for the tender physical contact, a comfort she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please tell me.” Maureen said, leaning forward to look at Jean’s face, her dark brown hair fell out of place, she combed it back behind her ear and Jean smiled sadly at the small mannerism. She sniffed and sat up, lacing her hands together in her lap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m pregnant.” Jean said, her voice tinny and loud as she burst into tears again, her whole body shuddering from the force of her emotion. Maureen was overwhelmed with feelings about this woman, who’d helped her so much and been one of her only friends in a long time. Now it was her duty to be there for Jean. “I just don’t know what to do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, darling…” Maureen said and took Jean into a hug, which she quickly reciprocated, her arms wrapping tightly around Maureen, desperately clinging to her. Maureen’s head buried into her shoulder, the scent of Jean’s perfume intoxicating, she’d never noticed how good she smelled until now, a rich heady jasmine. There was that feeling again, her heart fluttering and a desire. It took a moment for her to realised, as she stroked Jean’s sobbing back, a frown on her face, concern in her deep brown eyes. She was in love with Jean. The feeling was foreign and something she hadn’t truly felt for a long, long time. Jean pulled away from her, feeling something change in the atmosphere. Maureen smiled weakly and wiped a tear from Jean’s face. Jean shivered at the touch, her own hand joining Maureen’s on her face, feeling the weight of a hand in her own. Maureen was enraptured with what they held between them. An impulse appeared in her mind, the excitement of the thought pulsing through her bloodstream, one little idea. Something that she probably shouldn’t do. The pull was too strong. She kissed Jean, her lips soft and unlike any man’s. Jean kissed her back, slowly and carefully. Uncertainty in this kiss but comfort, greater comfort than either of them knew to be possible in another person. Jean drew away, a hand finding her stomach almost subconsciously. She looked at Maureen, the pink lipstick she’d left smeared on her lips, on top of the lipstick she’d given her. Maureen found her other hand and held it as Jean composed herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’ll be okay, I promise.” Maureen said kissing her again, the feeling new and burning bright in her mind. As the kiss broke, Jean smiled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you.” She said, a lost happiness in her expression.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think I love you.” Maureen said, as they lay together in Jean’s bed, nothing sexual had happened. Jean felt like a young heartbroken girl, desperately needing the care of someone other than herself, something that she’d never really had.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” She said, slowly, as the words were spoken into the back of her neck, hands held over her stomach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I said, I think I love you, Jean.” Jean sighed. She’d had a love and she’d lost it, and now love was again being offered to her in the vessel of what had started as a friend. She felt it though, what was between them and what had been there since the first time they’d met, for fucks sake, she’d given her lipstick and a vibrator. Of course there was an underlying feeling. Sometimes Jean found it hard to see in herself what she saw in the people she therapised daily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay.” Was all she could really say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s fine if you don’t want to say it back, or if you don’t feel it.” Maureen said, stroking Jean’s stomach, knowing she held her hands over the growing foetus of what would become a human child. The release of any pressure in the moment had been released and Jean found herself okay with the idea of her and Maureen. Of someone that loved her. She needed to be loved and for a long time she’d neglected that fact. She needed to love someone that loved her back. The strong feeling that had left her frightened after Remi was being dissolved bit by bit as she opened up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you.” Jean replied and for once she was happy, in the delicate intimacy that she’d forbade from entering her life.</span>
</p><p> </p>
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